Leaping In
by suburbs
Summary: Caitlyn feels like she needs to take care of Jason since he refuses to stand up for himself. Happy  early  Birthday Sweetgalsab!


_Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock._

_A/N: This is very loosely based on a bit I saw about Jason working with the younger campers. _

_Dedication: Happy Birthday to __Sweetgalsab__! Hope you like it, Sabrina _

As Caitlyn sat eating lunch in the camp cafeteria, she glanced around looking for a familiar face. Wrinkling her nose in confusion, she turned to her best friend and asked, "Where's Jason? He isn't sitting with his campers or us."

Mitchie looked around the room and replied, "I don't know." After a moment she added, "That's weird. He never misses my mom's grilled cheese."

"Or her chocolate chip cookies," Caitlyn added. Looking down at her empty plate, she made a decision. "I'm going to ask your mom to keep a plate warm for him and see if I can track him down. Maybe he got distracted by a woodpecker or something on the way to lunch." When she saw her friend smirking, Caitlyn added defensively, "What? I can be nice!"

"Especially to Jason," Mitchie replied in a sing-songy voice.

Caitlyn rolled her eyes. Mitchie had been trying to get her to admit she liked Jason all summer, which was starting to get old. Giving him a necklace to put his cabin key on so he wouldn't keep losing it did not mean she liked him; it was just being a good friend. And maybe she did help him make a birdhouse, but that was because she was tired of listening to him whine about it. Or at least that was what she kept telling Mitchie. "Well someone has to look after the poor guy," she replied.

"I don't know if you've noticed Caitlyn, but he's actually doing a great job with his campers."

"I know that," Caitlyn snapped. "He does a fantastic job taking care of other people, but not such a good job of watching out for himself."

As she stormed out of the cafeteria, Caitlyn was aware that Mitchie had no idea what she was talking about or why she was so angry, and she wasn't even sure she could explain it to her friend if she wanted to. There was just something about the way that everyone treated Jason that drove her crazy. Like this morning at breakfast when the guys had been discussing the fall tour; Jason had made a suggestion, and Shane and Nate had totally blown him off. Nate had rolled his eyes and kept talking like he hadn't even heard him, which was rude, but still better than Shane who snapped, "Don't be an idiot Jason."

It took everything in Caitlyn not to punch Connect 3's frontman in the nose. Instead she had "accidentally" spilled her orange juice on his white skinny jeans, which was actually fairly satisfying. He totally screamed like a girl; plus it earned her a grin from Jason who appeared to know what she had done and why.

Sure, dumping orange juice on a rock star wasn't super mature, but Jason was a sweet guy who deserved to be treated with respect, especially from his friends. It bugged her that he never stood up for himself; she didn't understand how he could just let people walk over him like that.

Or maybe she did understand because she hated that watching him reminded her of Tess and her first summer at Camp Rock as one of Tess' drones. And no one should treat Jason like that.

She figured the best place to start looking for Jason would be the last place she knew he was supposed to be – the music cabin where he taught a morning class. Sure enough, when she opened the door, she saw the curly-haired guitarist standing in the middle of a room that was covered in musical instruments. He appeared to be gathering an immense amount of sheet music from off the floor.

"What the hell happened in here?" Caitlyn asked in shock. "Was there an earthquake or tornado that I missed?"

Jason looked up at the sound of her voice and gave her an embarrassed smile. "Nope. Just Music Appreciation."

"Huh," she replied with obvious confusion. "And somehow the kids needed to destroy the room in order to appreciate music?"

"No. I set up stations so they could try out all these different instruments," he began to explain. "And it was going really well, and I was so excited about how into the music they were…" His voice began to trail off.

"That you forgot to have them stick around to help you clean up?" Caitlyn finished for him.

"Something like that." He looked sheepishly at the girl in front of him. "And then when I was putting away the xylophone, I knocked over all Brown's sheet music for his vocal class this afternoon. I think I've got most of it, but I still have to put all these instruments away before my campers have to be at swimming."

Caitlyn was not a neat person by nature, and she hated cleaning up messes – especially other people's messes, but there was nothing else to be done. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Lunch is almost over, Jase. I asked Connie to save you a plate, so if you hurry you can eat before swimming."

"But the room-" Jason started to say.

"I will clean it up for you," she impatiently. "Now hurry!"

Caitlyn knew that it sounded like she was upset with Jason, so she was relieved when the older boy grinned at her and gave her a quick hug before sprinting out the door. "You're the best, Cait!" He called as he headed towards the cafeteria.

"I'm enabling you," she grumbled to herself as she bent down and picked up a tambourine, trying to ignore the fluttery feeling in her stomach that she got every time Jason touched her.

Later that evening as everyone was headed for a camp fire, she stopped a large group of junior campers. With a hand on her hip, she narrowed her eyes and said, "Just a second guys. I need to have a word with you."

Most of the kids looked a little frightened by the fierce-looking girl, but a scrawny red-head stepped forward and said, in what was obviously an attempt to be suave," You can have as much of my time as you want, beautiful." He glanced over at his friends, obviously checking to see if they noticed his moves.

Caitlyn raised an eyebrow at the little playboy before turning away from him and directing her comments to the group. "Are any of you in Jason's Music Appreciation class?"

A handful of campers nodded and a few raised their hands. Addressing the group at large, she said, "You're all new here, so let me give you some advice. You never walk out of a class and leave a huge mess for your instructors to clean up. I saw what that cabin looked like after you all left, and it wasn't pretty. Jason's too nice to say anything about it, but I'm not. If it happens again, I'm sure Brown can find something for you all to do – like wash dishes or scrub out the canoes to help you remember to pick up after yourselves." She smiled sweetly at the group of kids, but her stern voice did not match her expression. "Understood?"

The kids' eyes all were huge as they nodded at her. "Excellent. Glad we understand each other." Waving her hands dismissively, she added, "Go! Have fun at the camp fire."

All of the kids scrambled to get away from her, except for the annoying redhead. After all the other campers were out of sight, he actually took a step closer and leered at her. "So I remember seeing you dance at the opening jam. How about you give me some private dancing lessons?" His eyes raked up and down her body before he said, "Or we could skip the dancing and just get to know each other better."

Caitlyn blinked in surprise at the suggestive tone he used, taken aback at the fact that the punk who couldn't be more than twelve was clearly hitting on her. She had thought that you at least needed to have hit puberty to be smarmy. Before she could think of a suitable comeback, an arm slid around her shoulder and a voice from next to her barked, "Not cool, Tyler! You need to treat girls with respect."

The boy's eyes went wide and he began to stutter, "But I didn't do-"

Jason cut him off before he could stammer out a full defense, "We both know exactly what you were trying to do Tyler, and it was completely inappropriate. Now apologize to Caitlyn and head over to the camp fire. You and I will talk later!"

Caitlyn barely heard the mumbled apologize because she was in shock; she had never heard Jason speak to anyone like that. There was a firmness to his voice – an edge that showed exactly how serious he was. She had no idea he had it in him.

"Are you okay?"

His question, asked with obvious concern for her brought her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine. That was just really, really weird," she said with a shake of her head. Turning to look up at him, she added, "Thanks for leaping in to defend me."

He squeezed her should once before dropping his arm. "Any time," he replied with a smile. "Speaking of leaping in, do you happen to know why three junior campers just stopped and apologized for leaving a mess today?"

"No idea," Caitlyn said with a smirk.

"They told me some scary chick told them to pick up after themselves," he told her. Caitlyn couldn't help but laugh at the kids' description of her. "And when I asked what she looked like, they told me she brown, curly hair and was wearing green and purple." She looked ruefully at her purple jeans and lime green top. "Didn't have any orange juice with you this time?" He asked with a smirk.

"Maybe I wouldn't need to scare young children and damage the wardrobe of egotistical pop stars if you would just stand up for yourself," she pointed out.

"Why would I need to stand up for myself when you do such a good job of doing it for me?" He asked jokingly.

Caitlyn narrowed her eyes at him, "I'm being serious, here Jase. I don't like it when you let people take advantage of you or treat you badly."

He looked down at her with an expression that made it feel like she had butterflies in her stomach. "I know, Cait." He smiled fondly at her. "I promise I stand up for myself when it's important. I just don't worry about the small stuff." He reached out and took her hand. "Plus, I like watching you get all riled up and protective of me. It's adorable."

Caitlyn felt herself blushing, and for the second time in less than ten minutes, she was at a loss for words. "What?" She finally coughed out.

"Although I pretty much think you're adorable all the time," he said looking down at their joined hands.

It was then that it finally hit her that Jason, the guy she hadn't wanted to admit she liked, was standing there holding her hand, telling her that he thought she was adorable. Grinning, she squeezed his hand and replied, "I think you're fairly adorable as well."

"Excellent!" He said happily. "Adorable enough that you might consider going on a date with me?"

For a moment she considered trying to come up with a witty comeback, but that just seemed wrong. Instead she nodded and said, "Definitely."

Even though it was starting to get dark, she could see Jason's face light up at her response. Then he dropped her hand and pulled her into a hug, placing a quick kiss on her cheek. "We'd better get to the camp fire before people get worried," he whispered in her ear.

"Let 'em worry," she said as she slid her hands around his neck and pulled him in for a real kiss.


End file.
